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Thursday, 3 September 2009

Review - A Word Like. Attack - The Litten Tree, Coventry - 29/08/2009

I arrived at the Litten Tree in Coventry not really knowing what to expect never having been in there before. As it's a City Centre pub, that from what I could tell before this night caters for the more townie element of the City. Anyway as I got there the first act on acoustic artist Ryan Martin was just finishing. And was informed by my friends that I hadn't missed anything, so far so good then!

Next up was 16 year old band Infury, apparently before I got to the pub there was a stand up row between the staff of the Litten Tree and the parents of the band. Suffice to say that once the band was finished, they left with most of the crowd that were there to see them. Infury's set was a mixture of original songs that sounded like early Metallica and early Metallica covers, plus Motorhead and Pantera ones as well. They're young and talented so I expect to see them get better and drop the Metallica sound, which they really need to do.

Penultimate act were Plymouth's A Word Like. Attack! who were quite simply phenomenal. Despite having a handful of people to play to (as the only local band on the bill had just left with all their fans) and also playing in a venue not really suited to their sound they put on one hell of a performance. One of my friends thought they were Emo, but I didn't think they were as they were really good, but they played heavy rock guitars with melodic vocals and were as tight as a gnat's chuff. The singer was also amusing to watch as he climbed around the pub whilst singing. It's just a shame they were having issues with the sound coming from their laptop, which when it worked after the second song, added a brilliant dimension to their sound. Another shame is that the promoter doesn't seem to know how promote, I only found about this through my friends who were coming to see the last band of the night.

That band was Leamington's Gehtika who are a bit generic in their sound but they have modern style of metal with screamy vocals and hell are they loud. It's just a shame that they had even less people to play to than previous band. They put on an impressive set for 40 mins which pretty much emptied the venue. This is not their fault though, they were booked to play there and the promoter should have filled the place. But I didn't see any promotion for this night or any other night that has been put on there by this promoter. It is not fair to expect the bands to bring the entire crowd especially when they've travelled all the way up from Plymouth!